settled north of the Orange River, with a barrier of native states set
up for the purpose on the east and west; and which now threatened to
involve it in a quarrel which naturally arose between Moshesh, the
Basuto chief, and the emigrants whom he had been appointed to restrain.

Pretorius retired across the Vaal where he joined Potgieter, who, after
the failure of his attack on Dingaan in 1838, had gone into
Moselekatse's country and had driven him beyond the Limpopo. A Republic
was set up beyond the Vaal which the British Government recognized as
independent in the Zand River Convention of 1852.

Such is in brief the story of the Boers' claim to Natal. They considered
it to be their lawful heritage out of which they had been jockeyed, and
in October, 1899, they seemed to have a chance of recovering it. They
boasted that they would not only win back Pietermaritzburg, which was
named after two leaders of the Great Trek, Pieter Retief and Gert
Maritz, but that they would establish themselves on the shores of the
Indian Ocean. It was not the vainglorious gasconade of a swashbuckler.
Four months after October 11, 1899, when the Boer ultimatum expired, the
British Army was still engaged in endeavouring to drive out the Boers
from British territory, and hardly a rifle had been discharged in the
enemy's country.

Napoleon was in the habit of impressing upon his officers the necessity
of studying past campaigns, both modern and ancient; but those who
anticipated confidently that the Boer War would soon be brought to a
successful close by the British Army were led into their error by the
history of past campaigns. There was, however, one campaign, the War of
Independence in North America, which the discerning might have
recognized as an analogous struggle; but it was overlooked, and the